


it takes a leap of faith

by janie_tangerine



Category: Bastille Day (2016)
Genre: Feelings Realization, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trust Issues, both of these two are shit at feelings TM, if briar's terrible at relating to people michael has issues for ten psychiatrists probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 10:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10534332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: in which Michael undergoes an exercise in trusting that lasts months.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written on tumblr a while ago (again) for the prompt _it doesn't take long for Michael to trust Sean with his life (despite the whole "you're Ivy League" fiasco). It does, however, take a lot longer to trust him not to leave._ Anon asks, I deliver. xD the title is probably from a lot of things but in this instance I got it from Bruce Springsteen, nothing else but the plot is mine as usual and I sadly still don't own them. xD

Fact is: if Michael was a smart person, he wouldn’t trust Briar as far as he can throw him.

(Which literally would translate into _not very far_ , given who’d get the upper hand in between the two of them should they actually fight. He’s seen enough of that.)

There are other two facts to be taken into consideration, though. The first is that Michael never shone for what anyone could call smart decisions - hell, he’s fairly sure his track record in this case is abysmal. The second is that, turns out, he can throw Briar at least as far as _I can trust him to keep me alive_  goes.

It’s honestly unsettling that he becomes okay with it as quickly as he does, but - some six months after they’re cleared to work together and he’s done with his training and everything, he has to give it to the man: he can do his job, even if he’s a reckless bastard without an ounce of self-preservation instinct, and he _doesn’t_  get his partners killed. Hell, after the _tenth_  time the guy saves his hide, it’s plenty obvious that at least Michael can trust him with covering his ass when it comes to the job. Or maybe in general, but never mind that. And after all, back when they just met, the stubborn bastard _did_  take a bullet for Michael… didn’t he?

_That_  is a thing he doesn’t really think much back on, lest he goes on a path he wouldn’t like. Mostly because he had known the guy for what, two days, and he _had_  read the fucking file and he knew he didn’t play well with others and wasn’t famous for risking his neck for other people, and all the same, he did take the damned bullet.

And what’s sad is that Michael isn’t sure he knows anyone who’d have done the same. _Maybe_  his mother, probably, if it really came down to it, but their relationship is strained as it is these days and he can’t really blame her for it, and he’s just - now they talk sort of regularly and maybe he can patch it up, but it’s hardly ideal. _Surely_  not his father. Hell, Michael doesn’t even know where the fuck he ended up, not that he cares. The asshole can just stay away forever, for all he cares. Any of the friends he might have had in school wouldn’t have even covered for him if someone suspected him of stealing something. And out of everyone he ever screwed - yeah, let’s not even go _there_.

But an antisocial CIA agent who hadn’t even known him for two days and who had pretty much lied to him in order to assure his cooperation _had_. And is still doing it. Probably would again, if it came to that, but good thing it’s not coming to that.

Some people would find it flattering. Michael doesn’t know if he should find it sad or not. Probably it is. But that’s not - that’s not even the point.

The point is that since the moment Michael stole the damned bomb, Briar’s been _there_  and it’s been a year and some, and he’s _still there_.

Not counting his parents (and for that matter, Michael’s father does not count under any sense of the word), _no one else_  has stuck around him this long. Or, Michael hasn’t stuck around anyone else this long. Semantics. Not the point.

He has never spent so much time with another person he wasn’t related to, not to the point where they actually aren’t mere acquaintances. He’s spent enough time around Briar to know that he’s _that_  much of an antisocial ass but that if he doesn’t dislike you then he’s fairly okay to be around, that he doesn’t fuck around with his work and with what things he cares about (not many, but they _exist_ ), that he might be an ass to most human beings but not to his cat (it somehow was not a surprise that Briar turned out to own one), that his family is actually _entirely normal_  and not made of equally antisocial people (Michael met them twice and never said that Briar’s dad was nicer to him those two times than his own asshole of a father ever was in the entire time they shared a house), that he’s in fact reliable when he wants to be and -

And Michael also knows that _he_  is a goddamned idiot, because he _knows_  he shouldn’t get attached to people (they all leave at some point, sooner or later), he’s been proved that same thing over and over, and now -

Well, truth to be told, he _had_  felt attracted to the guy the moment he stopped scaring the shit out of him, but fuck’s sake, Michael’s known since he was fourteen that he’s into guys and he has _eyes_  and Briar’s certainly not slacking when it comes to be too attractive for his own good. But especially if they had to work together - well, he should have just tried to kill it and go on with his life.

Instead not only it’s not gone, now he also _trusts the guy to keep him alive_.

He’s so fucked.

He’s absolutely, completely fucked, because that’s exactly the way it begins all the time. He always gets convinced that maybe this one will stick around, and then no one ever does, and it’s been the same since his father to his last boyfriend before he left the States, and he’s taken care to not get attached since then.

Yeah.

He really got that one wrong.

He tries to not let that affect him - after all, he knows that even if his life’s fairly good right now there’s no way he’s going to keep on living it for a very long time. So he doesn’t get his hopes up.

–-

That is, until one evening he finds Briar outside the infirmary where he got patched up for a minor wound he got during the last job - it just needed a few stitches, luckily.

“How are you doing?” Briar asks.

“Fine.”

“Right. Just come down, I’ll drive you.”

“There’s no need -”

He never finishes that sentence because Briar glares at him instead and so he follows down the stairs. They drive in silence until Briar stops in front of his block, and Michael’s about to get down from the car when -

“Take the day off tomorrow.”

“I’ll be okay, I don’t need to -”

“There’s nothing urgent to do around headquarters. Just take it.”

Michael does, and then Briar drops in the day after and drops a bag of take out on his table before going back to work without saying anything.

Michael will deny to the end of his days that he had eaten take-out Thai while feeling a _lot_  like he was about to cry in gratitude.

–-

A couple of months later, things go awry. As in, he probably shouldn’t go undercover before getting a few more extra classes when it comes to how to get away with it because he _did_  manage to steal the information he needed and to get them to their contact, but he wasn’t careful enough and now he’s _chained in a fucking basement_ in a warehouse in… well, their criminals were in Stuttgart, but he’s fairly sure they’re nowhere near the city right now.

He’s not really holding out much hope that he’ll get out of this unscathed - he’s pretty banged up after only two hours and these people don’t fuck around, but he’s also not going to rat on the only people who ever put some modicum of trust in him in his entire life and so he keeps his mouth shut.

By the time the door opens he expects one of the guys they put to guard him to come in.

He wasn’t certainly expecting Briar with - not guns blazing, but looking fucking _worried_.

He passes out before he can appreciate the rescue.

When he wakes up, he’s in some German hospital with Briar reading a book sitting in the chair next to the bed.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” he rasps, and it wasn’t probably the first thing he should have said.

“Just for reading,” Briar deadpans. “You got off light, but you’re not leaving before four days. You have three cracked ribs, a concussion and a sprained wrist.”

Shit. Well, sprained wrist never hurt anyone’s skills when it came to stealing if it’s just that.

“Could’ve been worse.”

“I suppose,” Briar says, and goes back to reading.

He also shows up _every other fucking day_. He doesn’t talk shop or the mission or anything - he arrives, asks him how he’s doing, reads his novel, leaves him some food that’s not as shitty as the hospital’s and leaves, but -

_He comes in every day_.

The one time he broke a leg and had to stay in the hospital for five days, his mom showed up twice, his father never and none of his school friends did.

–-

After that, Michael’s just - he wants to think that this might be the one time someone he likes _somewhat_  sticks around. But he just - he can’t be sure. Not with his track record, not with _everything else_  and not with the job he has.

So he doesn’t let himself fall for it.

Or so he decides.

Then his birthday rolls around.

He hasn’t advertised it and he intends to spend it ignoring it’s even happening. He replies to his mother’s texts and no one at HQ wishes him happy birthday, because no one knows or has no stake in remembering it, anyway.

So he’s really not expecting anything other than the usual when he walks into the small room they’ve given him to do his paperwork because they realize that making him share with Briar meant that the rest of the office spent more time hearing them bickering more than doing their job.

Instead, Briar’s there.

_What_?

“Good morning,” Michael says cautiously.

Briar gives him a nod. Then -

“Get over here,” he says.

_Okay_ , that’s normal. He’s more or less always like that.

“Uh, is anything going on?”

“We could say so,” Briar says, and why does he have to be so cryptical all the time?

“Okay. What?”

“I got a call from the higher-ups. They might need me to relocate in Australia for the next ten months or so.”

_Shit_ , Michael thinks, _obviously. The shoe had to drop on the perfect day for it to drop_. He tries not to let his disappointment show.

“ _Australia_?”

“I know. As if I want to go fight their ridiculous wildlife other than criminals. Anyway, I couldn’t say no. So - I’m leaving in two days.”

_Even better_ , Michael almost groans. “Well, uh, congratulations. I mean, I guess they do trust you now.”

Briar smirks. “They said they wouldn’t have thought about it before seeing _my track record_  for this last year. By the way, I wasn’t done.”

“Sorry?”

“I mean, it’s not _definitive_. I’d come back here when my work there is over, if I want to.”

_If I want to_.

Who even says he would? Hell, Michael wouldn’t blame him if he just wants to go back to the US.

“Do - do you?”

“Well, I don’t hate Paris as much as I thought I would, but that’s not the point. I might and I might not. It depends.”

“From what?”

“From whether _you_  want to stay here.”

For a moment Michael can’t believe his own ears.

“ _Excuse me_?”

Briar shrugs. “Given that your track record was fairly good along with mine, HQ recommended you for another job. Canada. Six months undercover, at least. However, they said that if you’d rather keep on _partnering_ , I didn’t have to go to Australia on my own. Then, they also said they’d rather have you back here since you’ve lived here long enough and you know the city and all that jazz, but that’d be up to you. _That_ is what I meant.”

There are a lot of things that should stand out from that small speech. But what Michael can’t unhear is… none of them.

“Wait, are you saying you’re asking _me_  an opinion when it comes to what you want to do with your life?”

Briar smirks ever so slightly. “Why not?”

Michael just _stares_  at Briar, not knowing what the fuck he should say, and then -

“By the way,” Briar says, “I entirely understand not wanting the extra fuss, but still.”

He grabs a small paper bag from the top of the desk - Michael hadn’t even noticed it was there - and hands it over to him. Michael opens it.

There’s a fucking cake inside. Small, not enough for two people to split, but a cake nonetheless. He thinks it has to be sponge cake covered in strawberry frosting - the top is all pink and there are three small strawberries in the center. It almost looks too nice to eat it.

“What -”

“Do you think I don’t know who _snuck into my house and left me an entire prepared breakfast_  the morning of _my_  fucking birthday? Mason, fuck’s sake, I’m not stupid.”

… so he _did_  guess, even if the bastard never mentioned it.

“I -”

“Just think about your options.”

“I don’t need to. What if I want to come to Australia and then come back here?”

Briar shrugs and gives him a nod. “I’d say I can imagine worse prospects. And - Michael?”

“Yes?” Michael’s heart is beating so fast it might burst out of his fucking ribcage at this point.

“I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

He’s not even - he’s phrasing it as some kind of fucking undeniable truth, and Michael holds his breath as Briar moves _closer_ , and -

“I also hate beating around the bush and I think we’ve done that enough,” Briar says, and his mouth presses against Michael’s for a second before he moves back, and _since when Briar is being the one in touch with his feelings out of the two of them_?

Then he leans back and smirks in a way that is entirely too smug, and Michael would find it irritating if he wasn’t about to faint.

“Let me know before five PM today. I’m going to finish my paperwork. I’m in my office for _anything_ ,” he adds, and then walks out of the room.

Micheal looks at the two envelopes on his desk that weren’t there yesterday and thinks _oh my God this actually happened_ , and damn but he can’t stop smiling to himself as he thinks that maybe -

Maybe, this is the one time someone _stays_  and - it’s been long enough. 

Maybe it’s time he actually believes it for real.

 

End.


End file.
